City seeks to keep local control over electric rates

By SHANNA SISSOM | Herald Managing Editor

Published 4:26 pm, Tuesday, February 12, 2013

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City seeks to keep local control over electric rates

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Eying a bill in the Texas Legislature seeking to eliminate local control over electric rates, the Plainview City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday supporting activity and goals of the Alliance of Xcel Municipalities.

“Basically, it’s to get the cities out of their hair so to speak,” City Manager Greg Ingham told the council of what power companies are seeking. “The goal is to take away our original jurisdiction.”

Another goal of power companies, as Ingham explained, is to remove a requirement that cities be reimbursed for municipal expenses in participating in the rate-making process.

Ingham illustrated examples in the Xcel service region in which what the company requested, and what was ultimately approved, represented substantial savings to electric consumers in some cases.

Ingham said several other cities have already approved similar resolutions.

In other business, Plainview Police Capt. Dennis Harkins presented the council with racial profiling statistics, showing that of 2,642 arrests and citations, 70.6 percent were Hispanic, 22.6 percent white and 6.7 percent black.

When you look at latest population figures indicating race, a 2012 report shows 76.8 percent of PISD school children are Hispanic, 17.78 percent white, 3.94 percent black and 1.62 classified as “other.” The latest census, taken in 2010, showed 59.6 percent of the general population Hispanic, 33.9 percent white, 5.2 percent black and 1.3 percent “other.”

The council seemed in agreement there were no red flags in the state-mandated racial profiling report.

“It helps us establish the fact we don’t have a (racial profiling) problem here in Plainview, and I’m proud of that,” Mayor Wendell Dunlap said.

Harkins said most of the time, officers don’t know what race a suspect is until after they are pulled over.